Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-03-11

they can be bought only by actual
settlers and not more than
$40 acres each. If this difficulty can be
Ooviated we will buy your lands 10 large
blocks. The solution of that question
was the lease law-the lald monopoly
law. The act of 1883, which authorized
the organization of the land board, and
the leasing of the school lands for a term
OF not over ten years. This law has
effectually disposed Of the railroad lands
by the wholesale, and done away with
their emigrant agency business;
it has tied up the school lands in the
hands of the cattle kingston ten years, it
has inagurated q land monopoly in Texas,
which has checked emigration and laid
al embargo upon labor in the west, aud
upon the productions of the soil How
| this legislation was procured will leave
to con- lecture. 1t is significant that at the
| first Democratic convention sitter the
| passage OF that act, which met in Houston
in August, 1884, the Democratic party
Incorporated in their platform a plank,
the sixth article indUrSing this act of the
Legislature, thus adopting the lease law
as Democratic measure.
Now, is this Democracy? | think not.
If there ever was land monopoly it oc-
NNtO w lilO hLtaL IulS 10 ObG1 INDUSTRIOUS IN
its conception, and whitening, blightingy
destructive in its effects upon the .princi-
pies of Democracy. 1t turns over the
public domain of Texas to tae
moneyed lords of earth, and bars
the doors of our state to that
stream OF immigration which was maklnea
camp ground of her beautiful prsiries.
1t will not do to say that the lease law
holds these lands open to actual settlers.
The law says so, but it Is o dead letter.
No working man will buy 100 OF $40
acres of the school lands which has been
leased to a csttle king. No sane man
would undertake to settle home for his
family where he would artsaonize such
nelghbor.
This question has not been opened up
to the people yet. The powers that in
augurated it have suppressed it. They
have blinded some and bulIdoZed others.
but it will come to the front in due tine
end 1t will not be q reyroach to be known
as free grass advocate. The chiIdren's
grass is a catch word and 4 delusion.
Ten years hence the school land Wouli be
worth no more than it is now under this
lease system. Agriculture is discour-
aged and inhibited where those lands lie.
Whole counties are wired in, locked
up, against habitation, agriculture, the
ert4 and sciences AMI the refinements Of
social life. The Old Texan who was per
maps born and raised on the frontier and
spent his young days in driving back the
savage, must gather up his family and his
100 or 200 head of cattle, must abandon
his little farm at whatever pI,tanCe he can
get for it from the master of the herd.
who lives perhaps in New York or. Scot
land, and seek home wherever he can.
This is my view of the lard question In
Texas, of the lease law and its effects.
If am wrong would be corrected. |
fair criticism. II the present
system is correct it should be advocated,
explained and established, not by the de-
of free grass men and their
IDEAS, but by argument. If this can not
)e done, let the law be repealed The
people are waiting and listening for
Olid, tangible and intelligent solution of
his question. 1t is the great question of
tate policy. 1t will not down at the
bidding. II. F. O'NEAL.